Supreme Court wants regulator for environmental clearances of projects

摘要

IN a major blow to the Centre's election year decision to speed up environmental clearance to long pending projects, the Supreme Court ordered the government to appoint a national regulator which would take up comprehensive environmental impact assessment (EIA) of projects. Brushing aside the Centre's opposition to a national regulator, a bench of Justice AK Patnaik, Justice SS Nijjar and Justice FMI Kalifulla said the super regulator was the need of the hour as the present mechanism "is deficient in many respects". This would bring an end to rapid ElAs, conducted earlier by the ministry of environment and forest (MoEF), for important projects.